This idea of guidance is important; children need the framework and support to expand their ZPD. Since the ZPD defines the skills and abilities that children are in the process of developing, there is also a range of development that we might call a "stretch goal"(Mooney).

For Vygotsky, supplying the child with a combination of theoretical and empirical learning methods is a more robust way to ensure cognition. This leads to something he called "leading activity," which, especially in middle childhood (e.g. elementary school), becomes an important formative step in the development of self-consciousness and a way to define the student's role within the world. Sell- reflection is one major accomplishment during this period, the transition from using social and cultural norms as values for evaluating the external world (peers, etc.) and then also mastering these concepts for inward, or self-reflection. As this process evolves, the child in the middle...
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